Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
agriculture systems as human rights. Additionally, each contains a poli-
tics of knowledge privileging the lived experiences of marginalized
farmers and landless peoples. They differ, however, in the scale at which
they work and the norms through which individuals and communities
can participate. In nations that have embraced the globalization of
agriculture, some projects create spaces of resistance and social networks
that may someday fuel direct opposition to it. For now, individuals
participate as producers and consumers of local, sustainably raised food.
In nations that have instituted or lean toward socialism, local and
national policies can themselves be drivers of food sovereignty and
justice, creating participatory norms of citizenry rather than consump-
tion. Finally, social movements engage in direct actions such as land
occupation and protests in order to advocate for food sovereignty both
within and beyond national borders.
Resistance as Everyday Practice:
Campesino a Campesino
and
El Ranchero Solidario
At the community level, several projects consist of producers and con-
sumers creating everyday alternatives to the agricultural system dictated
by the Green Revolution and international lending agencies.
El Movi-
mento Campesino a Campesino
(the farmer-to-farmer movement) is
comprised of small farmers from Central America and Mexico who
develop sustainable agricultural practices and share their knowledge with
one another.
El Ranchero Solidario
(Solidarity Ranch), on the other
hand, helps farmers establish more secure livelihoods through the collec-
tive, local distribution of their crops. Together, they create alternatives
to the chemically intensive farming regimes and export-oriented market-
ing strategies enabled and dictated by the Green Revolution and struc-
tural adjustment. As in the United States, the Mexican government's deep
embeddedness in the above-described transnational policies of privatiza-
tion fosters participatory norms that work within market-exchange
relations.
From Farmer To Farmer
The Campesino a Campesino movement (MCAC) began in Chimalte-
nango, Guatemala, in the 1970s. There, a retired soil conservationist
employed by a U.S. NGO experimented with agroecological techniques,
raised his crop yields, and sought to share his success with his Mayan
neighbors. Despite years of low yields and debt incurred in the purchase
